Manipulation
by disputed
Summary: Iris Elec was a rather awkward woman who worked at a bookstore, that was until a firey haired woman from S.H.I.E.L.D told her they requested her presence in a special program. It so happens, S.H.I.E.L.D knows her more thsn she does herself. What memories are lurking far beyond the corners of her mind? Does she hold the answer to all of Bruce Banner's problems and he to her's? B/OC
1. Manipulation

Iris Elec was not an Avenger, nor a hero. In fact she had been fairly normal- if a little more awkward and quiet than most, until a certain red haired girl came for her... on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D.

* * *

Iris sighed, closing up the small bookstore for the hundredth time, at nine o'clock at night. The air was cooler than usual and the stars weren't shining too brightly. She had always loved books, cherished them even, but the bookstore she worked at was not going to work out in the long run. Unfortunately, she became easily bored, miserable even, after a length of time living or working anywhere. She liked to blame moving around so much when she was younger for that particular trait.

The bookstore also had an increasingly worrying man, named Zane. He was fifteen years her senior (not that she didn't mind older men, infact, they were her type), incredibly lanky with dark circles underneath his eyes. He stared at her strangely whilst she was stacking books and he was at the desk, he creeped her out. Also, her boss was a rather stern elder lady, with hair wrapped so tightly into a bun that Iris often wondered how she didn't get headaches.

She began to walk home, ignoring the bite that the cool air had against her skin. She wore an ebony dress with an even darker coat. She promptly plugged in her earphones as she heard the sound of drunken laughter, ignoring the increase of her heart rate. She tried to slow her anxiety by listening to a song, she liked to think she was named after it but she would never know.

"I'd give up forever to touch you

cause I don't think that they'd understand

when everything's meant to be broken

I just want you to know who I am..."

Iris smiled to herself, ignoring the gut wrenching feelings that caused tears to prickle at her eyes. Music easily made her emotions go haywire. As she rounded the corner and walked the small steps to her flat, she paused noticing the door already open and the lights on. Pausing her music, she tentatively opened it further and walked in to view her living room, which now occupied a woman. Iris's heart stopped as she glanced rapidly between her and the walls, why was a stranger in her place? An overwhelming urge to yell or scream came upon her but she didn't act on it.

Iris observed her, before her mind spun. The fear she felt was unnatural. The woman was undoubtedly beautiful, with curly red hair and pink lips, a slim figure underneath some sort of leather catsuit. Iris briefly wondered where she might find one. The woman moved to step near Iris but she backed away, fear gripping her with each moment.

"Iris Elec. I am Agent Romanoff and I'm here on behalf of S.H.I.E.L.D. We are asking for your co-operation on a certain matter. I'm sure you have questions, but it's important you come with me tonight. I will explain everything on the way." Romanoff's voice was clear and confirmative, something Iris found to be struggling with most days.

Iris fidgeted with her hands, feeling her stupid smile that only showed up when things were extremely awkward or the conversations became too serious. She was the only one she knew who smiled when things became tense or awkward, then again she didn't know many. She laughed inwardly at the idea of trusting a stranger clad in leather and dangerous looking who had randomly shown up in her own home. What was S.H.I.E.L.D anyway? What would they want with her?

"I-i I'd like t-to decline that, uh, request." Iris stuttered out looking anywhere but this strange woman's eyes.

"Okay, I lied. Sorry, it's more of a demand. I didn't want to have to do this to you...but, it's for your protection." All of a sudden the firey haired woman leapt from where she was and as quick as a fox produced a flash of a needle before a sharp pinch was felt on Iris's neck as she felt a strange fluid enter it. Despite her racing heart and fear, her mind seemed to numb and so did her sight, to the point of utter darkness.


	2. Memories

Bright lights flooded Iris's eyelids as the opened fractionally. The memories of the woman from S.H.I.E.L.D flowed back into her mind and she sat up, terrified. She was in a dark blue room, occupying a bed that almost looked like a hospital room minus the heart moniter. it was illuminated by a rather bright lamp on her bedroom table, which also had two pills and a bottle of water. Iris began to panic, her heart accelerating and palms sweating as she fiddled with the rest of the blanket until it reached below her feet. Her hand went up to her neck and felt a small puncture where the needle had gone, what had they given her? Her throat burned with dryness but she refused to open the bottle of water, even though a migraine was begining to form.

Soon she heard footprints coming from outside and fear jolted through her body as tears threatened to spill from her cheeks. A million questions jostled her mind as she saw the doorhandle move. What if they were coming to kill her? Who were 'they'?

"You dragged her here like you did me, huh? Did you have to inject her?" A calm yet agitated male voice drifted into the room as it opened, it was rather monotone yet soothing.

"Sorry, doc, S.H.I.E.L.D needed her like they need you." The firey haired woman's voice came after him as they both stepped into her room.

Iris's eyes immediately went to the man. He was of average build and was wearing too large of size clothes. He stood incredibly awkwardly, the way she did in social situiations, one side leaning over while the other only felt half the pressure. His skin was as tanned as Iris had always wanted on her own complextion, indicating to her he'd been somewhere with a lot of sunlight and humid conditions (not that she'd been watching too much of Sherlock recently). His hair was dark and curly with a few sprinkles of grey in his hair that were before his time. His warm brown eyes locked with her different coloured ones. Suddenly he was by her side, glasses over his eyes and peering into her own. His eyes flickered to her neck before glancing at her forehead, making her worried.

"Uh, hi, I'm...Bruce Banner." Bruce gave a small, strange wave before leaning closer to inspect her neck, making her heart jolt.

"Doc, she might be a little frightened." The red haired woman commented from her stance at the end of her bed, her eyes shimmerying eith strsnge concern. Bruce edged back into his chair hastily.

"Ugh, right, sorry. She's de-hydrated." Bruce said, craning his neck to look at the other woman who watched him like a hawk.

She nodded very slowly but not to them, she brought a hand up to the earpiece she wore and began to widen her eyes.

"They've found Loki, he's in Stuttgard. Doc, you know where your lab is, right? Make sure she starts to drink, Fury wants to see her soon. Oh, I'm Natasha Romanoff if you forgot." Natasha indicated to Iris as she stealthily slipped away from the room leaving a cold silence behind her.

Iris was confused and worried. Half of the things they were saying didn't make sense to her. What type of person was called Fury? Or Loki. Where the hell was she? She knew for a fact it wasn't a real hospital, because this Bruce man wasn't wearing a doctor's uniform. She began to fidget with the clothes she had worn...last night? She hoped so. Her eyes averted Bruce and he did hers. The uncomfortable silence became too awful to bear and both of them spoke up.

"Who are you people?"

"Are you alright?"

They spoke in unison and Iris couldn't help the grin that formed on her face. Damn her strange responses to tense situiations. Unbelievably, when she looked up she noticed the ghost of a grin amongst the man's face as he looked down with embarassment. It was too bad he was most likely a serial killer/kidnapper, for he was rather adorable. Although, it was not like her to not love a villain.

"Uh...well, S.H.I.E.L.D is an organisation. Romanoff works for it. I was called in here to help locate the tesseract and uh, S.H.I.E.L.D is right now, looking for Loki, a guy- or God, who's killed a whole lot of people... Y-you don't look good, you need to drink the water." Bruce opened the water bottle and handed it out to her, tentatively she took it and after several glances at it decided it was safe to drink and took a huge gulp and then another and another.

After she had finished she'd realised she'd drunk three quarters of the bottle and glanced over to Bruce, to find him staring right at her. A heavy warmth spread across her cheeks as she handed it back to him, ignoring the feeling of his skin against hers.

"If you want, we can go to the lab. I have some work to do." The awkward doctor muttered as he stood from his chair, waiting for an answer. She almost laughed out loud as he spoke about a lab, being reminded of Walter White and this Bruce Banner in the same second made her amusement level ascend.

Iris contemplated what she should do, but she knew she would be fretting all day inside the bedroom on her own if she didn't go with him. She stood as well, following him and clutching both of her hands infront of her nervously, occasionally tipping on her toes. She watched curiously at the man's hands that were constantly in balled fists beside his body as they walked. Was he annoyed with my company?, she asked herself.

Outside of her room everything looked plain yet new, computers and tech she had never seen before were lined up on the walls and hundreds of rooms seemed to pass them as they walked down the blue halls. A few 'agents' walked past them, looking worn out and sweaty, in catsuits or leather material. They were both given strange looks, though both elected to ignore it. Soon they reached a room that was guarded by glass windows, though, she suspected it was probably bullet proof glass, at least.

"Welcome to my humble abode." The doctor said attempting humour as he rubbed the back of his head and gave a smalll, awkward 'ladies first' gesture with his other arm.

Iris stepped into the 'lab' gaping at the amount of computers she had never heard of before and the numerous gadgets she thought only existed in strange sci-fi movies. It looked almost like a movie set for some tv show.

She briefly wondered if perhaps she was dreaming or that stuff Natasha had given her was actually a hallucinogenic substance and right then she was actually still in her living room day dreaming. Was it truly possible all this existed, as well as the agents she had seen? Maybe it was a prank.

"So, Hetrochromia, right?" Bruce asked out of the blue and for a moment she wondered what he was talking about until he looked into her eyes pointedly with a small grin. One eye had been blue while the other a dark green since birth.

"Oh, yeah. I was born with them. I hated them in highschool, I still do. It's not fair other people have normal ones." Iris pouted slightly as she rested her chin upon a rather tall bench, feeling the cool metal against her skin. Bruce was giving her an amusing smile while she did so.

"I think they're nicer than the normal ones..." He muttered trying to ignore the blonde woman's stare but failing miserably as he fiddled with a spoon from one of his coffees earlier that morning, until he lost his grip on it and it felt to the floor.

"Uh, do whatever you want. Just don't touch anything pointy. I was wondering, what does S.H.I.E.L.D want you for anyway? Agent Romanoff didn't say." Bruce said as he took his glasses off for a moment and rubbed his eyes tiredly, she thought he looked rather adorable doing that but opted not to say so.

"Because Doctor Banner, she holds something that could bring a key to the success of this operation. We believe Iris has memories that have been purposely misplaced from unknown threats. Essentially, all we know is Iris was a test subject when she was younger for a group of estranged scientists, but what we do not know is how far these experiments went." A man had somehow walked into the lab without her knowledge and despite everything he had said, his eyepatch was what drew her to him. He had dark skin and wore all black, a serious expression adorned on his face.

His words finally sunk in and as she tried to process what he had told her, imsges flashed through her mind as if they were infront of her. Slashes of blood on walls, a man with dark glasses peering at her, her wrists were bound to a chair and blood tests were being taken while murmuring was going on in the background. She felt the man with dark glasses grip her arm ready to extract more blood.

"_NO, no, NO. GET AWAY FROM M-ME_."

Suddenly a piercing hot flash of white invaded her minds eye and once again, everything around her turned to a great darkness.

* * *

**Thank you for all of the follows and faves! Next chapter will be less fluffy. More about her meeting the other Avengers, interacting with Loki and trying to piece together her memories. It will also be longer, hopefully. Please review! :)**


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